This three-volume history represents the first modern attempt to present an understanding of social and economic change in Germany from the Middle Ages to the present. Two volumes are now available; the third is forthcoming. The first volume discerns the roots of sixteenth-century developments in the later Middle Ages, going as far back as 1300 to establish basic economic frameworks in population and agrarian development, patterns of towns and town-country relations, social structure, and changing patterns of consumption and daily life.